Slashdot Mirror
AIDS Vaccine Breakthrough
Doc Ruby writes "Scientists at Johns Hopkins University in MD, USA announced they've disrupted the means by which HIV stops the immune system from attacking it. From the article: 'Scientists say they have found a way to disarm the AIDS virus in research that could lead to a vaccine. Researchers have discovered that if they eliminate a cholesterol membrane surrounding the virus, HIV cannot disrupt communication among disease-fighting cells and the immune system returns to normal. [...] "By stealing cholesterol from the envelope of the virus, we can neutralize the subversion," said Graham. "We've broken the code; we can shut down the type of interference that HIV is having on the immune system."'"
With the recent deluge of articles on curing aids, cancer and even the common cold, is the future finally here? Are we going Deus Ex in a few years now?
The article hints at a way to attack the virus in the lab. There is absolutely no attempt yet to do the same in a human body. Can it be done safely? While the article says the cholestrerol membrane is not the same as the one that occurs in things related to coronary disease, is it maybe in use somewhere else? Wouldn't be much point in an AIDS vacine that causes you to fall apart in a puddle.
But the cure for AIDS has been here for a long time. How many people do you know with AIDS? I am not just making another joke about slashdotters not having sex, which isn't funny at all damn you!, but am serious. AIDS was this terrible nightmare from a by gone era when some people who made a lot of noise in the media had unprotected sex with everyone else in the group.
When people stopped doing that, AIDS practically disappeared to the point that young people again think it is safe to have unprotected sex with anyone.
The cure is latex, it works, it has been tried and tested. Not science, or as you put it, the futures fault you refuse to take your medicine.
It has always struck me as odd that it tooks AIDS to get people to start using condoms. Like the other diseases out there are not highly dangerous. This story itself is more likely to kill more people before it can start to cure as people think, "Oh there is a cure, we can fuck around again with no condom". This was the result of all the previous aids blocker stories were people interpreted it as a cure and so didn't care anymore.
Odd stuff, just because we got cure for food poisoning doesn't mean people started eating rotten food on purpose.
As for Africa, the aids epidemic is a symthom not the disease itself. Remove aids and the causes for mass infections remain.
Good news that there is a potential new avenue to create a medicine BUT it not yet here and the underlying problems have not been tackled. Humanity is still its old self.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
What about the other 10%?
Abstinence. Don't be tempted by sex unless you are 100% absolutely sure. I would suggest waiting until marriage.
I liked this article from a few days ago about using AIDS to kill cancer. http://nyti.ms/ouwqci Seemed poetic or something.
The title is a bit misleading, but the content isn't. Knowing how to disarm the virus is a significant development. It's certainly not the same thing as a cure, but it is more than hype.
An important change for education.
We won't see or hear about these breakthroughs again because there won't be any "profitable" method of distribution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_HIV/AIDS_adult_prevalence_rate
Can't understand how anybody can post snarky troll crap at all.
Did you know there are over 30 million people with HIV and 1 million are in the U.S., and it's apparently accelerating maybe?
These researchers probably deserve the nobel and the medal of honor. Here's hoping that something amazing comes out of this.
Of course the tangent everyone will want to know about is this cholesterol film around the virus they are disrupting.. and a naive question about whether there is something simple that can be done to reduce this cholesterol and weaken the virus' immune disruption activity, before waiting years for the real thing.
I say several times UNPROTECTED sex. I mention latex explicitly. Was I being that subtle in referring to condoms?
And the underlying cause in Africa is not sex, it is rape. Mass rape. It is an cultural attitude to women that is getting ever more brutal.
Read a little about conditions in for instance South Africa before you go all indignant.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"Africa is both the epicenter for the disease, and is a poverty-stricken continent where people need to have families, and relatively large ones at that, in order to be taken care of in their old age. These features are sufficient to explain the sustained high infection rate without resorting to the racist twaddle you're apparently peddling. "
Oh boy, you're so full of bullshit.
"Medical experts have shown a clear association between HIV exposure and coerced sex. Wives who suffer violence if they request condom use or faithfulness are at higher risk of AIDS than unmarried women and girls. That is why defeating the AIDS pandemic requires a second radical proposition: that African women and girls have the right to protection under their own countries' laws.
Why is this concept radical? Because public justice systems in many AIDS-burdened countries are broken or virtually inaccessible to poor girls and women. Rape and beatings are simply the norm, and deterrence and accountability for these crimes in Africa is as rare as AIDS drugs used to be."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/13/AR2006081300716.html
"Rape, including child rape, is increasing at shocking rates in South Africa. Sexual violence against children, including the raping of infants, has increased 400% over the past decade (Dempster, 2002). According to a report by BBC news, a female born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped in her lifetime than learning how to read (Dempster, 2002). When South Africa became a democracy in 1994, there were already 18,801 cases of rape per year, but by 2001 there were 24,892 (Dempster, 2002). Numbers vary by different institutions, but are nevertheless extremely troubling. The Institute of Race Relations found that more than 52,000 rapes were reported in 2000, and 40% of the victims were under age 18 (du Venage, 2002). The University of South Africa reports that 1 million women and children are raped there each year (South Africa: Focus on the Virgin Myth, 2002)."
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/444213
http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2002/april/virgin.htm
Also, big families don't cause rape, you can't catch an infection from a clean partner no matter how many times you have sex.
I label all my packages HIV, I've never had one run through with a forklift or drop-kicked into a truck. Works great!
Here in Canada, they had a working tokamak producing an iota more than it consumed, while in steady state. When they reach that point the gov killed the project. Yes, the net balance was still negative, as it consumed a shit load of energy to get into that state and for some untold reasons, the researchers were not allowed to run it long enough to achieve a positive net balance. The tokamak name was Tokamak de Varennes.
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
Wrong breakthrough, I'm sorry to say. That one was an analysis of a protein that all retroviruses (including HIV) have - this one is an actual (albeit in vitro) treatment method. This paper is in a completely different direction, and arguably one step further along its path... and no, FoldIt was not involved in this particular breakthrough. Both are cool, but not the same work.
"This AIDS thing's not working." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShTjhhYN04Y
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Being from South Africa and having worked in health care, I can confidently tell you that the only people who think dumbass shit like "vaccines are a government plot" are "educated" people from first world countries.
I hate printers.
Yes, AIDS is a Syndrome caused by HIV which is a Virus. Your being a pedant served no purpose other than making an ass of yourself. There is no lazy journalism going on here.
So, is stealing the cholesterol from the outer membrane of the virus fall under the definition of starving a cold?
"No good deed goes unpunished"